TORONTO — Actor Jake Gyllenhaal has had tongues wagging since showing up for Monday’s Hollywood Film Awards looking gaunt.
The 32-year-old insists there’s nothing wrong — his emaciated appearance is for movie role.
Gyllenhaal is shooting Nightcrawler, a drama about a man who stumbles into the underground world of crime journalism in Los Angeles.
“I knew that he was literally and figuratively hungry,” the actor told Us Weekly.
Gyllenhaal said losing 20 pounds for the role — and keeping it off — was not difficult. “I just love this movie. That’s how I did it,” he said. “There really was no technique.”
It’s the not the first time Gyllenhaal has transformed his physique for a movie: He bulked up with muscle for 2010’s Prince of Persia.
He’s also not the first actor to dramatically alter his physique for a film. Here is a look at some notable ones:
– Tom Hanks lost weight to play a man stranded on an island in 2000’s Cast Away and for 1993’s Philadelphia, in which he played a man living with AIDS.
– Before playing boxing champ Jake La Motta in the acclaimed 1980 film Raging Bull, Robert De Niro — who stands about 5’9″ — shed 60 pounds and toned his body.
– To play an insomniac in 2004’s The Machinist, Christian Bale lost a shocking 65 pounds, dropping to only 121 pounds. He then had six months to get his weight back up for 2005’s Batman Begins.
– Matt Damon packed on about 30 pounds to play an FBI agent in 2009’s The Informant after previously slimming down dramatically for his role as a heroin addict in 1996’s Courage Under Fire.
– Matthew McConaughey said he dropped 50 pounds for his role as an HIV-positive man in the new movie Dallas Buyers Club.
– McConaughey’s co-star Jared Leto gained nearly 70 pounds to portray John Lennon’s killer Mark David Chapman in 2007’s Chapter 27. He has said the transformation left him with severe foot pain.
– In preparation for his role as a cancer patient in 2011’s Things Fall Apart, rapper-actor 50 Cent got his weight down from 214 pounds to 160 pounds in only nine weeks.
– Russell Crowe has transformed his physique a number of times in the name of his art. He gained about 35 pounds for 1999’s The Insider and then bulked up to play Maximus in 2000’s Gladiator. For 2008’s Body of Lies he put on more than 60 pounds.
– Vincent D’Onofrio packed on 70 pounds to play a Marine recruit in 1987’s Full Metal Jacket and then spent a reported nine months to slim down.
Doctors warn crash diets can weaken the immune system and damage organs, particularly the heart. Rapid weight gain also puts stress on the heart and joints.
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